Today not one performance of La Bayadère at the Mariinsky Theatre passes without the keen observation of Natalia Georgievna Spitsyna. Of the fifty years she has dedicated to her home theatre she has spent over twenty-five as a teacher and coach, jealously guarding the style and performing traditions of the Leningrad school of classical dance in Mariinsky Theatre productions.
A 1964 graduate of the Leningrad Vaganova School of Dance where she was trained by V. Mei, I. Trofimova and Y. Shiripina, Spitsyna flew onto the illustrious stage of the Kirov Theatre as the Street Dancer in Don Quixote – she had to learn the role in three rehearsals, for many years subsequently delighting audiences with her temperament and refined technique in this role. The Fairies in The Sleeping Beauty, La Bayadère, Swan Lake and Le Corsaire – Natalia Spitsyna danced the entire classical repertoire. Moreover, her artistic career saw numerous premieres and artistic collaborations with choreographers – working on productions by Konstantin Sergeyev, Leonid Yakobson, Igor Belsky and Oleg Vinogradov. Today Natalia Spitsyna’s rich onstage experience helps her train young performers. Thanks to her impeccable knowledge of choreographic texts and production styles, many ballets in the Mariinsky Theatre’s repertoire are now performed at theatres throughout the world – Natalia Spitsyna has set the Leningrad versions of La Bayadère, Swan Lake and Chopiniana at theatres in France, Italy, Japan, South Korea and Bulgaria. At the Mariinsky Theatre today Natalia Spitsyna works with the corps de ballet and the results of her labour are invariably highly praised by the public, generous applause rewarding the performers in the spectacular corps de ballet scenes.
La Bayadère on 30 April will be danced in her honour.
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